Chapter 17
seventeen
There was a knock on the door early the next morning. Groggily, I pulled myself from bed and made my way to the front of Wisteria Cottage. Silas trailed silently behind me.
When I pulled the door open, I found Fenlon standing before me, several of his buddies flanking him. This was not the morning greeting crew I’d been planning on or hoping for.
“Good morning,” Fen said. “Or maybe not. You’re under arrest.”
“What the hell?” Silas stepped around me, his tree-trunk of an arm leaning against the doorframe. “For starters, you don’t have the power to arrest anyone, Fenlon. Second, what are you arresting her for?”
“I do, actually, possess that power now. I’ve been voted interim leader until we decide what to do about her.” Fenlon inclined his head toward me. “The votes came in yesterday. As the temporary leader of The Isle, I have the power to make an arrest.”
“It’s like a citizen’s arrest. It doesn’t mean anything.” Ranger X elbowed his way up to the front door. “Fen’s full of shit. He doesn’t have any real power.”
“If that’s true, and he doesn’t have any real power,” Silas said. “Can you arrest him for disturbing our peace?”
Ranger X blew out a long, slow breath. “I hate to say it, but there is an old law that states if a council elects someone as interim leader of The Isle, they do have the power to make arrests.” X raised his hands.
“It’s not real power. It’s one of those ancient laws that everyone knows is stupid, so no one bothered to overturn it. Nothing will stick, but—”
“Can someone tell me what he wants to arrest me for in the first place?” I was tired. I wanted to go back to bed. I didn’t have time for bravado and bogus arrests. “I haven’t had time to do anything lately besides sleep and train.”
“Along with a little devouring of spirits?” Fenlon suggested, like he might ask if I had cereal for breakfast. “Like the three fishermen whose bodies we discovered this morning?”
“We,” Ranger X scoffed. “You tapped into the Ranger Comm system and stole information. We found them. You didn’t do much of anything.”
“All three of them—dead.” Fenlon wasn’t deterred. “She needs to be stopped.”
“What makes you think I had anything to do with that?” I asked.
The idea was preposterous. I didn’t have time to kill people, let alone the energy to pull it off. Don’t get me started on the motive.
“They were discovered with markings on their arms.” Fenlon smiled. “The symbol of the Triune Queen, the Triskelion Sigil.”
“This doesn’t mean it’s the symbol of the Triune Queen,” I said. “The Harbinger of the Underworld has been known to use it too.”
“The fishermen weren’t just drowned. They were killed before they were thrown overboard. Stabbed—with a dagger just the size of yours. Which means, we’ll need your dagger for evidence,” Fenlon said, like he was the sheriff in an old western. “Come on guys, toss this place.”
“That’s not how this works.” Ranger X threw out his tree trunk of an arm. There was a forest of biceps blocking the door so Fenlon couldn’t enter. “Even if some lingering law gives you a trickle of power, it doesn’t give you power to forego due process.”
A silence fell then. Fenlon had delivered his news with a chipper excitement that churned my gut. Ranger X’s sails deflated. He’d obviously been running on anger and frustration, but as he looked at me now, I saw something more there. Regret. Discomfort.
“You do need my dagger,” I whispered. “It’s okay. You can take it.”
“It’ll be easier to eliminate you as a suspect if we can test the blade,” Ranger X said. “The sooner we find the real murder weapon, the sooner we can get you off the hook.”
“I understand.” I disappeared into the bedroom, returned, handed over the dagger I’d just used in my dream to unlock the wards again. It was still damp. “Whatever you need, I’m willing to cooperate.”
“Then you can come with me,” Fenlon said. “We’ve got a nice little cell with your name on it.”
“Over my dead body,” Silas said. “You’ve got nothing on her. A symbol that might not even be related to her? A guess at the murder weapon which is absolutely wrong? Alessia is not going with you.”
“She has to,” Fenlon said. “That’s how it works. We can do a forty-eight-hour hold legally.”
“That’s not how this works,” Ranger X said. “I don’t care about the rules in your book. We do this our way.”
Ranger X didn’t need to expand. Fenlon’s face paled. There was a barely veiled threat hanging in the air. Apparently, even Ranger X found it appropriate to bend the written rules from time to time.
“She’s not a flight risk,” X continued. “She’s not dangerous. Silas will keep an eye on her while we test the dagger. There’s no evidence to arrest her.”
“Like I trust Silas?” Fenlon asked. “He’ll probably sneak her away.”
“You shouldn’t trust me,” Silas confirmed in a deep, dangerous voice. “With that said, would you prefer to have me as a half-assed friend or an absolute foe?”
Fenlon looked between Silas and Ranger X. He glanced at his own buddies who were mere shrimps in comparison to his size.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said, a sudden idea dawning on me. “You want to arrest me, Fenlon? I’ll go with you willingly after I complete one task.”
Ranger X and Silas were both shaking their heads. “No, you won’t.”
“I need to complete the Procession of Spirits,” I said. “Souls are trapped on this island. They’re antsy and looking for release to the spirit realm.”
“We don’t do that anymore,” Fenlon said. “That’s an ancient Fae Queen practice.”
“So we both agree that if I can release the spirits, then I’m the true Fae Queen?” I met Fenlon’s gaze. “You said it yourself.”
Fenlon looked like he wanted to swallow his tongue. He’d walked right into that one. “I mean—”
“Better yet, it’s entirely possible the three fishermen’s souls are trapped here on the island. If that’s true, maybe they can tell us who killed them.”
Fenlon looked at me in disbelief. “That’s… far-fetched.”
“Then you don’t mind making the deal,” I said. “Leave me be for now. Let the Rangers run the tests on my dagger. Let me try the Procession of Spirits tonight. If it turns out that my dagger killed the fishermen in the meantime, I’ll come with you without an argument.”
Fenlon didn’t have much of a choice. “Fine.”
Fenlon backed away with his pack of comrades.
I took a deep, shuddering breath. His early morning visit had rocked my confidence.
Obviously, I knew I hadn’t killed anyone, but it wasn’t fun being accused of murder all the same.
It also wasn’t exactly a joy to hand over my dagger to Ranger X, even though his eyes were flooded with sympathy.
“Sorry,” Ranger X said softly. “I tried to stop him, but I was caught up at the scene with the bodies when he slipped away.”
“Do you have any idea why the fishermen were murdered?” I asked. “Stabbed?”
“It’s likely a sacrifice,” Silas said quietly. “Three fishermen. The Triskelion Sigil. He’s preparing to open the veil between worlds.”
“What veil?”
“The Darkest Lord has been manipulating people in our world for years. It takes a human to genetically and magically alter the kraken and the lycanthrope. That’s not something they can do in the spirit realm.
But he can only control so much from a distance; the Darkest Lord has a formidable spirit army.
If the veil between their world and ours is opened, the fight will be… more fair than I care to admit.”
“What sort of sacrifice is needed?” I asked. “The souls of the fishermen?”
“The blood of three innocents,” Silas said. “There’s a ritual I’ve heard of that takes years to prepare. This is part of it. For centuries, people believed it was impossible—but only because it’s never been done before.”
“Is it impossible?”
“Like I said, it’s never been managed yet,” Silas said. “But I have to think everything is leading up to it. The Darkest Lord must think, for whatever reason, this is his time to try. That he might have a hope of success.”
“Do you know what else is needed for the spell?”
Silas shook his head. “I only know bits and pieces. This is obviously a very illegal spell which likely can’t be found in any normal textbook. I’ve only heard rumors.”
“We might have access to it,” Ranger X said. “We have some books on heavy lockdown in our archives. The dangerous, the deadly. I’ll see if I can unearth anything, but it’s possible a spell this size was banished even from our archives.”
“Doesn’t hurt to look,” I said. “The more information we have, the better.”
“The blood needs to be fresh,” Silas said in a low voice. “For the sacrifice.”
“Fresh?”
“In order for the spell to work, the blood has to be fresh.” Silas cleared his throat as we understood his implication.
“You mean,” I whispered, “if he’s going to try, he’ll try soon.”
“Within the week.”
I swallowed hard. “I’ve completed my trials. I need to see if I can access my ancestors' powers.”
“How will you do that?”
“The Procession of Spirits,” I said. “Tonight.”
The day passed in unremarkable, quiet normalcy, which was quite remarkable in and of itself.
I spent most of the hours tucked in the garden, poring over my Fae manuscripts.
Though the words remained mostly inscrutable, I was able to decipher more and more spells the longer I stared at the worn pages.
I concentrated on finding mentions of the Triskelion Sigil, the ancient sign of the Triune Queen.
It had long been forgotten because the last Triune Queen had vanished millennia ago.
The symbol had later been adopted for the Harbinger of the Underworld, the symbols of life and death and the cycle of life.
But in no books could I find a conclusive meaning as to what the Triskelion Sigil represented nor could I find a mention of the illegal spell Silas had mentioned.